January 30, 2006

"Theism and Mechanism in Leibniz"

I've just posted a new paper to my writings page, entitled "Theism and Mechanism in Leibniz." This is a topic that I've discussed quite a bit in the past few months, and this may be the end of it for a while.

An earlier version served as a term paper for Professor Karen Detlefsen's undergraduate seminar on Leibniz at Penn last semester. It has undergone slight revision based on her comments. Please feel free to offer any responses or discussion you have in the comments section of this post. Any revisions made will be documented in the comments here as well.

December 22, 2005

Let's Make Creation Science Not Suck

Nearly a month ago, I posted without commentary a Leibniz quote about materialism and supernaturalism. At the time I was busy with classes and didn't have time to really address the issue I saw the quote raising, but now that finals are over, I'd like to take a minute and look at this.

When I read this quote, I immediately thought of "creation science." Leibniz here describes what he sees as two false extremes: the one is represented today by the likes of Peter Atkins, the Oxford Chemist who insists that in order to properly follow scientific methodology one must believe that the ultimate physical laws of nature are logically necessary (which, let me interject, they obviously are not!) and that there exists nothing beyond the physical. The other extreme is represented by the so-called "creation science" movement (and some, but not all, proponents of intelligent design) who claim that the events of the natural world cannot all be explained by physical laws, and so oppose science. (Other intelligent design people merely intend to say that we ought not to think that the laws themselves are the result of chance, because there seems to be a sort of inherent purposiveness about them; I do personally endorse this position, as does Leibniz.) I have been arguing on this blog for some time that this is bad theology, and I've just recently finished writing a term paper arguing that Leibniz's mechanistic views are motivated primarily by theology - and good theology at that. (I plan to post this paper once I've received feedback from my professor and given it another edit.)

Between these two extremes, Leibniz plots a middle course: "all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically if we understood them well enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically, since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work."

In Discourse on Metaphysics 19 (which I discussed here) and in many other places, Leibniz argues for the use of "final causes" in physics. In particular, he is constantly claiming the Snell would never have discovered his laws of optics had he not considered that God does everything in the most perfect way possible.

Now, to the heading of this post: creation science, as it exists today, is bad for several reasons. Because creation scientists "do not reason with exactness in this matter, and it is easy for [their opponents] to reply to them, they injure religion in trying to render it service, for they merely confirm those in their error who recognize only material principles." Basically, they tend to make Christians look like idiots, and so atheists become all the more certain of their atheism. Creation scientists go around claiming that they are doing "science," but science, by definition, is concerned with "efficient causes" - it wants to find out the physical, not spiritual or metaphysical, reasons for events. And there are physical reasons for events. I continue to hold that it would essentially amount to God making a mistake if he had to break his own physical laws in order to bring about his will miraculously. Rather, the perfect wisdom and infinite power of God should lead us to conclude that he made a world in which his laws hold always, and that he is able to bring about his will, even in those things we consider miraculous, without breaking physical laws. If I am right about this, then the enterprise of science seen as the attempt to explain everything in the physical world by efficient causes is theologically legitimate. Furthermore, I think it is clear that the scientific method is a valid way of seeking truth and in particular of pursuing these kinds of investigations. Creation science, as it now exists, denies this. Instead, it claims that we must look to divine revelation, etc., in order to do science properly, and it often also claims that we should reject the idea that we can explain everything by efficient causes at all. Furthermore, it has been my experience that the people pursuing creation science rarely have sufficient theology/biblical studies backgrounds to make the kind of theological judgments needed for their field. Because of this, when it is accepted by the mainstream of Christianity, it can be theologically damaging as well.

However, I promised in the post title to explain how creation science could not suck, and I intend to do just that. You see, Leibniz was right, I think, in claiming that theists should make use of final causes in their investigations of nature. This cuts two ways: first, when we see that the world is a certain way, when we discover a scientific law or a theory, we should ask, why did God do things this way? Second, there are some cases in which we already have a pretty good idea, either through revelation or through reasoning about the nature of God, what God probably wanted to do with regard to some natural event, or we may know through revelation that some event occurred, and in these cases we can reason backward from the final cause and try to determine the efficient cause, and this may in some cases turn out to be a useful heuristic device in searching for knowledge of natural laws. Note that the aesthetic criteria which mathematicians and physicists increasingly make heuristic use of are of this nature.

However, these things are not science, and it is critical that we recognize this so we are able to communicate with the rest of the world. Michael Behe doesn't get to walk around with his own private definition of theory, and we can't just go around redefining science. If we do, then we won't be able to enter debate with non-Christians, because we won't be speaking the same language.

This is what I suggest we do: first, let's rename this field "theology of nature" (and try not to confuse it with natural theology). Then, let's take some Christians with strong science background (by which I mean, with Ph.Ds in the natural sciences) and send them to school for theology and/or biblical studies and/or philosophy of religion. Then, let's give them appointments in the theology or religious studies departments - not the departments of their scientific fields! - at universities as professors of the theology of nature. Then they can pursue their investigations of final causes, and we can all benefit from the knowledge they gain, and Christians can have a better understanding of the relationship of our faith to modern science. This idea of "theology of nature" is a perfectly legitimate academic pursuit and, Christians must believe, also a legitimate method of pursuing truth. Also, by placing this in the theology department and attracting more competent people to the serious study of it, we may have the effect of making Christianity more rather than less plausible to modern intellectuals.

November 29, 2005

Quote of the Day

"We know that while there have been, on the one hand, able philosophers who recognized nothing except what is material in the universe, there are, on the other hand, learned and zealous theologians who, shocked at the corpuscular philosophy and not content with checking it's misuse, have felt obliged to maintain tha tthere are phenomena in nature which cannot be explained by mechanical principles; as for example, light, weight, and elastic force. But since they do not reason with exactness in this matter, and it is easy for the corpuscular philosophers to reply to them, they injure religion in trying to render it service, for they merely confirm those in their error who recognize only material principles. The true middle term for satisfying both truth and piety is this: all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically if we understood them well enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically, since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work." - G.W. Leibniz, "Tentanem Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes," c. 1696 (tr. Leroy F. Loemaker).

October 12, 2005

Leibniz on "Efficient" vs. "Final" Causes in Physics: Its Application to God, Science, and Miracles

So I'm taking this class on Leibniz this semester (for those of you who may be unfamiliar, that is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the 17th century philosopher/scientist/mathematician, and the "other" discoverer of calculus), and I was reading his Discourse on Metaphysics today and came across this fantastic passage in section 19:

Moreover, it is unreasonable to introduce a supreme intelligence as orderer of things and then, instead of using his wisdom, use only the properties of matter to explain the phenomena. This is as if, in order to account for the conquest of an important place by a great prince, a historian were to claim that it occurred because the small particles of gunpowder, set off by the contact of a spark, escaped with sufficient speed to push a hard and heavy body against the walls of the place, while the little particles that make up the brass of the cannon were so firmly interlaced that this speed did not separate them, instead of showing how the foresight of the conqueror enabled him to choose suitable means and times and how his power overcame all obstacles.

The heading of this section is "The Utility of Final Causes in Physics." Now Leibniz, like me, sees no conflict between an event's being "miraculous" and its being explainable in terms of physics: as in the case of the conqueror, both explanations are correct, but only one is relevant. Leibniz borrows from Aristotle the terminology of "efficient" and "final" causes (Aristotle has two more types of causes, "formal" and "material," which are not relevant here). Today, we use the word "cause" to refer only to what Aristotle and later philosophers, including Leibniz, called the "efficient cause." The "final cause" is the purpose of a thing or event. For instance, the final cause of this post is (in part) to be read.

Now, for anyone who, like Leibniz and like myself, is a theist, the world is full of final causes. There are reasons why things are as they are. God has a design for the world. Leibniz, in this passage, tells us that it would be ridiculous to believe in God and not see final causes throughout the world. He also says, in a nearby section, that it is silly for those who study final causes of things to ridicule those who study their efficient causes, and vice versa. Both explanations are correct, but in a given situation one may be more relevant than another.

A while back, I wrote a post on Christian Naturalism. In it, I argued that Christians should not believe in exceptions to the laws of nature. This then leaves the problem of how to deal with miracles. In that post I said "A miracle is an event in which the 'higher functions' of the divine consciousness, i.e. the part equivalent to the conscious functioning of the human mind, that makes plans and designs regarding human lives and the like, are more apparent than the 'lower functions' which are the laws of nature. To put it more simply (but less precisely) a miracle occurs when the laws of nature conspire together to acheive some intelligent end." (Yes, the "conspire" language was in part a reference to Stephen Hawking's "Chronology Protection Conjecture.") Using the language of Aristotle and Leibniz I can now state this more precisely.

The difference between the "miraculous" and the "mundane" is purely subjective. A miracle is an event in which the "final cause" - the divine purpose behind it (or at least a part of that purpose) - is more readily apparent to the observer than the "efficient cause" - the physical laws which require that the event occurs. In this way, there is no contradiction between belief in the miraculous and naturalism.

A brief note on a related topic: I apply this same doctrine to all miracles, but one in which I have gotten very negative responses is in its application to the revelation of the Christian Scriptures. I believe that these are miraculous in precisely this sense: what came down to us turned out (not by any accident, but by divine purpose) to be the Living Word of God. This does not, however, mean that it was not produced in precisely the same way as any other work of literature. Therefore it is consistent with belief in the inspiration of Scripture to talk about the influence of earlier non-inspired writers (e.g. Plato, Philo of Alexandria, or Heraclitus) on the authors of Scripture, as I often do. I believe that the Scriptures are miraculously inspired, I just don't believe that they were inspired "in a vacuum" as it were, independent of the surrounding thought patterns. Where previous writers were correct, or almost correct, or provided good terminology for discussing a subject, God used their writings to bring it about that the authors of Scripture would write down the Living Word of God.